Spot Welding

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Questions and Answers

A resistance braze offers a few advantages over traditional spot welding:

First it allows the joining of materials that otherwise cannot be resistance welded. Generally they are very conductive materials and hard to get hot enough to form a weld nugget. Coppers and brasses would be an example of these.

Secondly a resistance braze can be performed at a lower temperature than a spot weld. We do not have to bring the work piece up to near its melting point. We only need to bring the braze shim to its melting point which is much lower. This means the work piece can preserve some or all of its mechanical properties. Post heat treatment may not be necessary.

The third advantage is that we can control the area of heat application to a small area of the part. We are only heating to a modest temperature and we can protect other areas if desired with cooling. The rest of the part stays strong for the end application.

The goal of a resistance brazing schedule is to bring a thin sheet of braze alloy to its melting point and form a fillet around the periphery of the part being joined. The squeeze cycle is basically the same as in spot welding – put the parts under the desired holding force. The off cycle is the same – cool and resolidify the braze material. What varies is the weld or heating portion of the cycle. Spot welds generally take a few cycles, or milliseconds. The time is generally less than a second. A resistance braze frequently will take several seconds up to many. It depends upon the size of the part and how conductive the material is.

In resistance brazing we are not spot welding but we still are passing modest currents so an adequate force is necessary to avoid arcing. The main goal of the force is to hold the parts together for current flow and avoid arcing so the braze alloy is not arced out of the joint. This is usually a modest force developed by trial with set up parts. Joule Heating H= I2rt will then generate the energy necessary for the braze material to melt. When molten braze metal is visible in the filet the current can be turned off and allowed to cool under pressure until solidified. Then the electrode can open and the part is ready to be ejected or removed. The temperature that the part reached at the joint is lower than it would have been if spot welded but it will be hot so caution is required.

Resistance brazing is not spot welding so the electrode face geometry does not have to concentrate the heat into a small area. Frequently the electrode face is machined to conform to the surface that it is in contact with. Frequently the electrode will contact the entire work piece surface. In some cases the electrode faces is milled out so the work piece can be nested into the face of the electrode in order to insure proper part placement and alignment. A small vacuum is sometimes pulled through the center of the electrode to hold the part in place before the electrode closes. This is very common for small part brazing.

Resistance brazing is a variation of the resistance welding process. Joules Law H= I2 RT provides the heat just as in spot welding. There is a squeeze weld and hold cycle. There are electrodes. To differentiate the process a thin piece of braze allow is placed between the parts being joined. The goal is to heat the braze material until it melts and bonds to both mating substrates. Then the current is turned off and the braze material solidifies. The result is a brazed joint bonding the parts together. Low force holders are frequently used.